


On blacken'd wings

by Fiala



Series: The Age of Struggle [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8416489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiala/pseuds/Fiala
Summary: The Old Gods will call to you,From their Ancient Prisons they will sing.Dragons with wicked eyes and wicked hearts,On blacken'd wings does deceit take flight,The First of My children, lost to night.-Canticle of Silence 3:6Lola is in the midst of grief when she downs the chalice and becomes a Grey warden. Waking, her life is dramatically shifted again when the Tower of Ishal falls. Her senior, Alistair, is her only companion, and he isn't much better off. Together, they know they must end the Blight. Together, or they will fall again and not get back up.





	

The night was black, an early autumn eve. Lola could still feel the burning smoke in her lungs as Duncan guided her out of Highever.

The pain swelling in her was so great, she wished she were numb. She felt like she was standing under the crest of a falling wave, feeling the impact over and over again.

They darted through alleyways and back-ends. The further off the main roads, the less likely Howe’s men were to follow. She could not think of that bastard. No matter how she tried to focus on him, or think of how she might seek vengeance, Father’s face swam in front of her, his body broken, blood pouring out from beneath him. His expression was unnatural as it twisted in agony. Her mother’s hands pulled Father’s head into her chest. She had forced a smile at Lola with blood in her teeth, telling her that she loved her.

 Lola felt her own face contort. The heat swelled behind her eyes, a growing pressure of tears threatening to burst. Percy pressed his nose into her palm. He whined softly, he likely smelt the scent of the salt on her.

 “You are brave,” said Duncan. They had passed the city gates. She felt naked in the barrenness of the ground. Was there anything left that the world wished to take from her?

 “If I truly were, I would have stayed with Mother.” Why hadn’t she? The Cousland line’s threatened existence was hardly a concern in the face of her desperate, dying parents. How long until her mother fell to the soldiers? Was she already dead, or clinging to life until Howe ended it?

How was Fergus going to react? Maker protect him and keep him alive in the king’s service!

 “You chose the path you feared most and took it. You did not resist me when I invoked the Right of Conscription. You are brave,” he repeated.

Lola shivered, pulling her cloak tight against her shoulders.

 Her cheeks were sticky when they settled to sleep beneath the overhead of a hill. Duncan claimed first watch, and Lola wished she had spoken up. The images of the fire kept her awake. Her father breathed his last, over and over. Her mother was pierced by arrows as she used her body to defend him. Lola buried herself in the bedroll, using the tattered blanket to make a cocoon. Percy lay beside her. One of her hands unearthed itself to brush his short fur, back and forth.

 She wasn’t brave. Sure, she was a woman trained by the sword. She’d been told how bold she was, being born of high blood and having pursued fighting as a man would. Her hands could have remained soft in her lap, but no, she was ‘daring’. Lola owned a blade and a war dog that had imprinted on her instead of her brother. When they’d sparred for so many years, people stopped whispering of the young lady Cousland who sweat and swung alongside her lord brother.

 Percy whimpered as Lola swiped across his muzzle. A small scratch had just started to mend along his furry cheek.

 “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, boy.”

 Just after dawn, they set off again. Ostagar seemed so long away. The nights were longer. Her arms encircled Percy’s thick neck when she slept. The Grey Warden kept his hands close to his blades, always watching. It was as he had said, back on the morning of that terrible day-“once you become a Warden, your old life is over.”

 Her new life began halfway down the Imperial Highway. Lola’s tears dried along with Percy’s wet nose. Duncan led the warrior and her hound down side roads. They often detoured to collect information or converse about odd jobs. Nearly every place they stopped by had a contact of Duncan’s waiting for him.

 The matters were usually quick. There was the exchanging of coin or the direct passing of gossip for such and such a matter. It perplexed Lola that the warden offered very little explanation as to why a tidbit about the Queen helped fight the Blight. No matter how she tried to ask, Duncan would answer as vaguely as possible.  
One such exchange ended poorly. The man pulled a dagger on Duncan as his lackeys emerged from a backdoor.

 “Ain’t none of your damned business, Warden,” he sneered. The man’s bravado quickly turned to a screech of pain as Duncan descended upon him. Lola quickly crossed blades with a thug, the metal singing at the contact.

 “Girlie,” the thug drawled, and Lola jammed her pommel into his gut before he could finish. She looked to Duncan, who had just pulled his weapon from the leader’s chest.

 Lola had lost track of how many she’d killed since Howe’s betrayal. That night she had killed her first opponent, then the next. The surrealism continued to snowball after that. Her thoughts always went to Oriana and Oren as she felled them, the grief numbing the sensation of her blade biting into new flesh.

 Maker be damned for allowing them to be taken away. Him and his foul breath that brought death and rhyme instead of salvation.


End file.
